Cooks keen on Samoa links

The Cook Islands Finance Minister, Mark Brown, has praised the sale of 60 percent of Telecom Cook Islands to Samoa-based Bluesky communications during a brief visit to the company's Apia headquarters.

Photo: PHOTO NZ

The other 40 percent of Telecom remains owned by the Cook Islands government.

Mr Brown says the sale represents the close links between his country and Samoa, and the next thing will be to look at direct flights between the two countries.

"The only thing we have to work on now that we have telecommunications connected is to see if we can get a flight going between Apia and Rarotonga so we can only take two-and-a-half hours to fly there instead of taking three-and-a-half hours to go to New Zealand and then fly back over to go to Rarotonga."